Café Kontra

Nostalgia (part V)

I saw a copy of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" strewn on the tambayan table today; it was a not-so-old-looking paperback with an orange cover. It made me sad, in a way, because I remembered my old beat-up copy of the book. Mine had a blue cover and showed Mrs. Frisby riding Jeremy across the sky, depicted in ink and flat colors.

That copy I saw in the tambayan and partly reread that afternoon belonged to a friend who was taking a Children's Lit class. Honestly, when she told me that, I felt an undeniable twinge of envy. I love children's books. If I had a class that required me to read children's books all throughout the sem, I'm pretty sure my average would go up [albeit the increase would be, for all intents and purposes, insignificant].

The other books that were in her required reasing list included The Little Prince [a classic, of course], The BFG by Roald Dahl, and even Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The aforementioned books, along with Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, were the only ones I had read in her list and thus the only ones I remembered.

I am personally not overly fond of Harry Potter but I understand why it was included in the course. On the other hand, I was overjoyed to see The BFG included, because Roald Dahl is one of my favorite authors [contrary to popular opinion, he wasn't just a children's writer; read one of his short stories for confirmation. I recommend "Skin" and "Genesis and Catastrophe"].

The encounter brought back memories of all the books I had read as a child and as a pseudo-child [which is an adult who still likes reading warped fairytales and playing with yoyos]. If I were to teach a children's lit course, I would include something by Madeline L'Engle and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Maybe I'd also choose one of those Pollyanna-type novels with "inspiring" plots. Perhaps even something from popular literature [admit it, you read The Hardy Boys too (nope, was never a big Nancy Drew fan)].

One of my dreams, truth be told, is to have a library of children's books when I have a house of my own.

I regret that I will probably never see the majority of books I had read again, mostly due to my inefficient, shameful memory. Most likely I will never remember the title of the series of fairytales I stole from my cousin, from which the only thing I remember is the ending:

They lived happily, of course, and the king and queen ruled justly and wisely, but many years after they died the nation once again fell to wickedness and decadence, and the good rulers were forgotten. Such an ending is echoed by Stardust, a novel not-quite-for-children written by Neil Gaiman. In the end, the king dies and leaves his queen alone to sit atop cold mountains and look up at stars with sad eyes.

The immensity of a childhood fills you up to the brim, but when you've spent only a few years in this world, you're too caught up in swimming in this sea of games and laughter and thoughts to see and appreciate what, in just a few more years, you will have to lose.

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Let's move on to a different type of nostalgia now, shall we?

I saw the rules for the Accoustic Jammeng'g' competition earlier this evening. The theme was, quite simply:

90's,

The first thought that came into my mind was: my God, was the 90's that long ago that already it's being made into a theme?

And then: awww, the 90's.

Grade School, as well as half of High School, was in the 90's. Our generation's culture--our music, our humor, our language, our ideology--was largely determined by this decade. The whole OPM boom we have now owes a lot to giants such as The Eraserheads. And although uncountable bands keep cropping up nowadays, the sound will never be the same.

I used to watch Tropang Trumpo, telenovelas such as Mara Clara, and--the perennial favorite--Home Along da Riles. Those days it was still commonplace for a student to reply the title of a local production when asked what her favorite show was (my answer was Home Along da Riles, thank you very much). Then again, maybe that was just us.

The 90's are over. Long live the 90's.

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I write quite often about nostalgia (try to find the four previous nostalgic posts), and I'm still fixated on the letter V, hence the title of this post. Ha.

If I experienced childhood, grade school, and high school nostalgia, today I experienced college nostalgia as well, despite the fact that I'm still in college. Tonight, while helping a friend look for an old short story in an old, now-unused yahoogroup, I took to reading the old messages.

Looking back on yout past plans and aspirations as a group and realizing you lost them through the course of time makes this set of nostalgic reminiscence far more poignant, even though most of the said dreams we had were mere trifles. Such nostalgia would seem silly to most people, just as childhood seems silly. But for the nostalgic, the silliness translates to a longing (yes, and as said before, according to Milan Kundera, suffering) that is heightened by the fact that:

These memories are special only to you, and when you forget, no one else will remember.

posted by Jael @ 1:01 AM